For Life Science, by Life Science professionals:
It takes 12 years on average for an experimental drug to travel from the laboratory to the medicine chest. Only five in 5,000 compounds that enter preclinical testing will actually progress into human clinical trials, and of these five, only one is likely to be approved by the regulatory authorities.
Experts forecast that the cost of producing a successful drug could top $2 billion by 2010 unless the pharmaceutical industry can identify new and better ways to improve efficiency and effectiveness of drug discovery and clinical trials. Cost pressures are enormous, even on those drugs already in the pipeline. In today's high-paced world of drug development, each day a new drug is not on store shelves can mean $1 million or more in lost revenues.
